


The thoughts of a clone

by Aleonoria (Nelle)



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Self-Reflection, decision-making
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-26
Updated: 2016-11-26
Packaged: 2018-09-02 10:04:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8663203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nelle/pseuds/Aleonoria
Summary: At the beginning of season five Carson thinks about who he is.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Gedankengänge eines Klons](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8140781) by [Aleonoria (Nelle)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nelle/pseuds/Aleonoria). 



> Second finished translation of one of my own works. As with "Something's changed": if you find mistakes just tell me so I can correct them.

Descartes coined the phrase “Cogito, ergo sum” – I think, therefore I am. He wanted to say that every clearly-thinking being has its own existence, a right to be. But does this saying one explain who he or she is? No, it doesn’t. I look into the mirror and recognize my face. The face I have been for over 30 years; so I thought.

I think I’m Doctor Carson Beckett; Scotsman, angler, doctor and beloved son of a proud mother. This is my existence. I’ve built that up. That is my life. But then, I meet their appreciating looks. They look at me and I realize that they don’t know how to behave. I am a thinking, sentient being, but I am also something with which they can’t cope. A constant reminder of what happened on a special day in this city – the day I died.

I have read the records, the reports and files of the day which is and will always be considered as one of the worst of this expedition. Nobody had any guilt about what happened, and yet everyone is looking for it by themselves. People oh whom I thought they were my friends, can’t look into my eyes anymore because I’m a constant reminder of what they thought done wrong. Therefore, my decision is already fixed, even I have not yet told anyone. I will, I must leave the city. For my, but mainly for their good. As long as I am here, they can’t conclude. Old wounds will tear open again and again.  


I think therefor I am. But I am not the one they want me to be. I am just an image. A clone provided by his creator with all the memories and abilities of the original. A fake, but a good one. With one exception. He had made me more self-assured. I used to be that only when I was dealing with patients. Now I am in every situation. I have learned to accept that my genes are different from those of the most people and now I can live with that. It is what it makes me. But they, they can’t deal with this changed ego. Want to have their Carson back. But that’s not possible. Because I am not him. I am me. Because I think, I feel and I know.  


I may have been created out of the thought of doing evil, but I will justify my existence with doing good. I look around. My colleagues, who used to talk to me with a small joke on their lips as long as no major emergency occurred, treat my now like a foreign body. Something they don’t know how to deal with. I feel like the explosive tumour that killed me, no him. That killed my pattern. A blonde, younger woman enters the room and I’m glad she is better again. That she is healthy again and I know that she has the ability and the knowledge to take over this position to the satisfaction of all. Just as she has done in the last years. So why am I still here? Why am I not long gone? I believe it is hope. Hope that something in their behaviour will change. Rodney claims that I am his best friend but I can see how the last years with John have been welding those two together. These two, who initially had their problems, are now the highly functional drive of this city. They are the two who hold this city together, this expedition, this family. They have been there since the beginning. Have suffered so many losses and injuries together and have gained strength as a result of this. Rodney is no longer as pretentious as at the beginning, is able to listen to suggestions from others and integrate them into his thoughts. And John? He really has nothing more from the seemingly worry-free pilot who sat out of sheer fun down in a “simple” chair on earth and set a chain of events in motion with this. They are what hold everything together. Everyone brings respect and trust to them and they pay that back by leaving no one willingly behind; no matter how hopeless everything seems. That they had to do it once would have almost broken them.  
They sacrifice – in the truest sense of the word – their blood and their bodies for these people, this city and every single one is thankful. This attitude, this willingness to do everything, had brought them closer together. They are – I’m looking for the right description – the engine, the drive, the heart and the soul of Atlantis. If any of them would no longer be here, I believe that would be the downfall of the city. Rodney with his understanding of the technique and the construction of everything and John with his hypersensitive gene who can reach the deepest points of the city with only one thought. Pretty early of our journey – no, his trip with the other Carson – they were talking. It was about whether it was normal that he could feel the city. That he could notice when something was wrong. That every time he returned from an external mission it was like a return to a warm and protective embrace. An inquiry by Major Lorne in the second year revealed that he felt similar. Not so distinctive, but still. Atlantis is the home of the Ancients and every gene carrier is a descendant, an heir to this people and will therefore always be welcomed in the city.  


But I digress. No, not really. Because even if I have everything from the other Carson – including the gene – the city seems to realize that I’m not real. Of course I am real, but not as a man should be. I was not born, I was created. I’m almost as wrong as the Human-form Replicators and Atlantis seems to recognize this. Just as she rejected Woolsey in the beginning she begins to reject me and this will eventually lead to the point where I will no longer be able to work with the full capacity of my abilities. But maybe I don’t have to. In a few days I will travel to Earth to get rid of some “mistakes” my creator had made, so I didn’t get the chance to rebel against him. And after that? A thought has been going around far back my head and is getting clearer now. I could help the people in this Galaxy. Built my own reputation. Maybe one day some of my old friends will see me as an independent being. As someone who thinks and acts on his own. Less like a copy but like a … new original. No longer the “Michael created clone of Dr Carson Beckett”.  
When leaving the infirmary I nod to the people I meet and I make a decision. Even if I am a doctor, even if I wrote a doctoral thesis and would be able to name me one with every right, I will renounce this title in the future. I want to make it easier for the people to accept me as me and I will make the first step by starting to build my own position. How does “Doctors without Borders of Pegasus Galaxy” sound? I think that could really work.  


A smile sneaks up on my face and I straighten myself up. Because of the darkness outside the window I walked by became a mirror and I pause shortly. The face is the same, but the expression is different. I am Carson Beckett. A copy of a man created by a cracked up Wraith Hybrid. A man who liked to fish, the Scot and the son of a proud mother. But I am also a new original. I am Carson, who’s going to do something in this Galaxy, who will make it better.  
I will build my own existence.

Cogito, ergo sum!

The End


End file.
